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| So what has happened to our local newspaper?Didcot councillors say residents expect better The drop in the quality of local news coverage has caught the attention of local councillors in Didcot, who conducted an informal survey of residents’ views. Comments included:
- local news is almost an afterthought, with scant regard to real local issues or events
- There is little or no coverage of the Town Council, South Oxfordshire District Council, or the County Council… what there is is lifted straight from … press releases.
- Didcot magistrates’ court coverage is meagre and often disregarded. With a few exceptions more serious crime, anti-social behaviour and road traffic accidents are confined to a paragraph or two, normally from Thames Valley Police press releases.
- Information provided by local organisations about important events in their calendars is very often ignored
The comments were published in an article published in Dedicated to Didcot, the newsletter of the Didcot Labour Party. The author commented, “The weekly newspaper remembered by many, with its children’s corner, specialist columns and hatches and dispatches, lasted a week; no one we spoke to expects this type of product now. What they do expect [the editor] to provide from his Oxford base is a Herald Series that is once again a cornerstone of local democracy and a basis of our sense of community.”
Speaking from the floor, at the Town Hall meeting, Didcot county councillor Neville Harris said the Didcot Herald editor, Derek Holmes, had criticised the article, saying it insulted hard-working journalists. Harris insisted, however, that it is not the dedication of the journalists that is in question, but the resources and support they get from their management. He also suggested that maintaining steady circulation figures over the past 10 years was less impressive once you bear in mind that the population of Didcot has grown by around 8,000 over that period.
AW 2009-02-04
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